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It’s been a while since I have written on my neglected blog site. Facebook and Pinterest have satisfied my needs for the kinds of “snack-sized” sharing and diverse idea hoarding that made up a lot of my old blog called Overflow. And life has been such that I have not been making time for the deeper kinds of thought required for more substantial writing.

Maybe that’s not fair to me. I do deep thinking all the time. But I rarely have my thoughts organized enough to write it down nowadays unless it’s for work, or a research project, or prep to teach a class. I don’t do much intellectual dallying nowadays. And, well, that’s a shame.

But now something has kindled both my intellectual and spiritual interest, with just enough of a fig leaf of practicality that I can persuade my “responsible brain” to take time to organize and write my thoughts down.

I am becoming an indirect fan of French Catholic philosopher Jean-Luc Marion and the apparent revolution in theological and philosophical thought happening in France. It piqued my interest to hear that a student of Jacques Derrida has made theology “hip” in contemporary French philosophy, the “Theological Turn” in Phenomenology as it is called. What grabbed and held my attention is the provocative title of Marion’s seminal work, “God Without Being.”

God without being. That struck me and stuck with me. I have always said to myself and others unfortunate enough to ask me that I truly do not care whether God exists and find all such discussions basically useless to my faith and how I live it out. In fact, I have been wary all my life of concepts of God that seem so inherently limited that they can end up being roadblocks to faith, especially as we grow more mature.

And now , in what passes as “breaking news” in the seemingly glacial world of theology, it looked like there were some authoritative kindred spirits out there who could help me develop my own “phenomenological turn.”

So I longed to get my hands on that book. I had a peek once, I did, but two pages hurt my head. It was like staring at the sun and I couldn’t squint hard enough to make heads or tails of what I was looking at. I don’t have the intellect and the requisite background on Rene Descartes, French Phenomenology, Jacques Derrida and postmodern “deconstructionism” to approach his writing, yet alone gain insight from it.

Luckily, I found a way to approach Marion indirectly, letting others do the heavy lifting. I got a bunch of articles about Marion’s ideas from the EBSCO database at my library. I decided to approach the mountain by stomping around the foothills. I found other authors, like Bruce Ellis Benson, who could summarize for me Marion’s key concepts and help me interpret them.

So, article by article, I am reading Jean-Luc Marion indirectly. Even indirectly, Marion’s concepts of “idol,” “distance,” “saturated phenomenon,” and “givenness” defy my cranial capacity. So this blog is where I will set down my marginal crib notes, starting with Dr. Benson’s article, “Love is a Given.”

The teaser idea so far. What excites me, draws me in, is that Catholic Jean-Luc Marion agrees with Nietzche’s proclamation that “God is dead.” And that, it turns out, is a good thing. A God “without Being” paradoxically enables us to be closer and more intimate with him where it really counts.

Somebody at work suggested “Pie-o-rama” for the next theme at our team meeting. (We’ve had “Dip-o-rama,” “Stick-o-rama,” and “Choc-o-rama” already.) That made me think about the Pie Of The Lord. I tried googling it and it didn’t come up. It was in 2003. So I’m reblogging just to resurface it to the search engine crawlers because such stories should remain as part of Clark tribal lore…

In the land of the Suburbanites, in the tribe of Clark, there was a High Priestess named Heidi who served God and ruled justly, slow to wrath and abounding in kindness. And in her reign the people were happy, for the land flowed with home cooking and every domestic goodness.

It was on the feast day of Saint Patrick that the Lord came to his priestess Heidi and said unto her: Heidi, my good and faithful servant, you are chosen this day to do my work. Heidi, though she was shaken with astonishment, replied, Whatever you will, my Lord, I shall do.

And the Lord spake unto her: You shall bring forth a pie such as none in this land has seen, that my name be praised. There shall be a homemade crust, not store-bought as the law does permit, but made by your hand from scratch so that all…

I remembered a factoid from one of my pastor’s homilies that the root of the word “religion” comes from the Latin “religio,” which means to be “bound again.”

To the uninitiated, this makes the idea of religion not sound very attractive. I can see why so many people like to say they are “spiritual but not religious.” But after praying about it I’ve decided I am more like “Religious, but not Spiritual.”

Sure, “religion” does come from the Latin root “religio,” but the origins of that root are disputed. Cicero asserted that “religio” comes from the verb “relegere,” meaning “to re-read or go over a text,” religion being a text-based tradition requiring study and transmission. The Christian writer Lactantius, among others, assert the most popular hypothesis that “religion” comes from “religare” which means to be “bound again.” Augustine preferred that version to Cicero’s, but offered that it also could come from “reeligare” meaning to “choose again.”

From what I have read so far, I am not sure I have a preference. As a Catholic Christian, I bind myself to study the Gospel of Jesus Christ and transmit it with the way I live my life. I am bound by the obligation to serve others in Love — a bond made most immediate to me in my role as husband and father.

When I rise each morning, I put on my wedding band, pocket my wallet and keys, grab my “wireless leash,” aka my phone. All of these are symbols of my vocation and life’s mission. I take them on each morning as a prayerful practice, taking up the yoke Christ offers me before going out into the world where I am bound to serve in myriad ways.

As with distractions in prayer, I get distracted in life. I drift away on a regular basis (sin, you can call it) and must “choose again” each day, each hour, each minute, to come back.

On the face of it, to the modern sensibility, this sounds like a big drag. Nobody nowadays wants to be tied-down, to be bound, by anything.

But in my heart of hearts I long for Love and Mercy. What better way is there for me to encounter Love and Mercy than to submit my whole self to them? This means I submit my hands, heart, head, feet, body, soul, and spirit all at once — a complete package. I cannot describe myself as “Spiritual” because I seek to be all in when it comes to Love. I can’t just give my “spirit.”

In adoration yesterday this conversation came to me. i know I need to have this very conversation with my kids as they start to transition into adulthood. I promised this conversation back in the letter I wrote a few years back about the deeper reality of Santa Claus. I get a lot of ideas in adoration. But I knew I just had to write this down. It’s only a start, but it’s a start.

In fact you wouldn’t eat a whole lot else back then. What? This lunch not good enough for you anymore?

Dad, I’m older now and this just doesn’t cut it. I need meat. Bread. Something to fill me up. At least make me a sandwich. You don’t have to cut my food up for me.

Yeah I know that. I gave you that lunch to make a point.

I knew it. It’s never just lunch with you. Amiright?

You know me well.

So what’s the point?

You outgrew your lunch. What is your ideal lunch now?

Pizza, burgers, cheese sticks, tacos. You, know. Real food.

Yeah I thought so. I was like that when I was your age. Look where that got me.

Oh no, is this a nutrition lecture? I think I have some studying to do…

No, no. Just pointing out that you will outgrow your current ideal lunch like you outgrew the one you loved when you were five.

I don’t think so.

I sure hope so. If you eat like that until you’re my age that diet will straight up kill you. It’s developmentally appropriate for you to like that food right now.

But you don’t let me have it that often. So…

So… I know that you’re there, but I also know you can’t stay there. You need to learn the grown up versions of things. You can’t always eat what’s easy, what’s most pleasurable. You can’t always eat for yourself. When you are older, you eat for others’ sake as well.

(blank stare)

You know how I told you that when you are an adult your job is to live for others in some way. You need to eat to be healthy and strong so you can be around for others. When you have children you will need to eat as an example for them. You’ll need to eat for your wife to show her that you’re serious about sticking around to love her and not abandon her. You eat for a lot of reasons besides, “Mmmm… that looks yummy.”

You’re not making adulthood seem very appealing.

Well, it’s not developmentally appropriate for you to think so yet. That’s okay. But as your father I have to nudge you along.

So this is a nudge? So you’re trying to get me to eat more salad or something?

Nope, I want you to get to know God better.

That was random. I thought we were talking about eating healthy and stuff.

We were. Do you know what the word “segue” means?

Nope.

It means to make a smooth transition from one context or subject to another. No segue for you. Stay with me. Do you believe in God?

Um… yeah, I guess. I’m supposed to, right?

It’s okay to say no.

I didn’t expect you to say that. I want to say no because I just don’t see how something like God can exist in the real world.

Then say no.

No. I guess I don’t believe in God.

You know what I hear when you say that?

What? That I’m grounded?

You’ve outgrown your five-year-old lunch.

You’ve lost me.

The God you thought you knew. The God described to you in bible stories when you were in preschool. The wise bearded superman in the sky. That’s not God. That’s more like Zeus. A primitive image. That’s an image of God that you’re supposed to outgrow. It was appropriate to describe God that way to you because that’s an image of benevolent, powerful authority that you could relate to. Something that looked like a parent, which at the time was pretty much your whole world. We weren’t lying to you then about God. We were just cutting God up into pieces before we served him to you.

I see what you did there. Like the lunch, right?

You always were a clever one. Here’s the first thing any adult has to understand about God. You can’t understand God. Anything you say about him is imperfect. Any God that fits tidily in your brain is a rather sad, limited kind of God. God is bigger than that.

Okay, so you’re going to get to the part where you tell me what God is?

Patience, grasshopper.

Grasshopper?

Sorry. I’m old. Remind me to see if we can find “Kung Fu” on Netflix. Anyway, any image of God is limited and imperfect. But some images of God have benefits that exceed their limitations. They help you develop your faith at a certain stages in your progress. You are supposed to outgrow them. Use them to seek him, but don’t cling to them. Do you know what “idolatry” means?

Worshipping statues and stuff?

It means confusing the symbol with what is symbolized. Worshipping the image that points to some aspect of God instead of God. Any mature Catholic should at least be partially agnostic because he knows his understanding of God is woefully inadequate. That there is way more he cannot say about God than what he can say.

Well, if God can’t be known, why bother?

I didn’t say God can’t be known. There are images of God we can know are true. And those images can be very helpful. But – remember this well – when you find yourself questioning your belief in God it means that the limitations of your concept of God have outweighed the benefits for you. Part of that image is still probably true, but you’ve outgrown it.

So I don’t believe in God like I did when I was five? And I need to change my image of God?

Yeah. Kinda.

So anyone can choose any image of God they want? Just what feels good? That doesn’t seem right.

Well, you sure can do that. Too many people do. They select a God that fits in a convenient box and keep him there. But no, that’s not right as I, and the Church, see it. We hold in common that there are some things that the Church says are definitely true about God. Then there are some things the Church says are definitely not true about God. But there’s way more that no one can say about God.

That’s if I believe the Church’s version of God, right?

Right. I hope, eventually, you will.

Why?

Because I am your father and I want you to grow up and be a fulfilled, happy person.

I do not see how a concept of God will do that for me.

It won’t. God. The real, living God. The God of the Catholic Church and the Judeo-Christian tradition will help you do that. Everyone has a “God” whether they call it that or not. The one you choose to follow makes a big difference in your life.

Even atheists have a “God?”

More or less. But it would be very impolite for you to say that to their faces. Their connotations of the word “God” tend to be negative. Probably because they’ve obviously outgrown whatever image of God they had as children. Somebody either crammed it down their throat for too long or they did not get help in finding their next understanding of God. Imagine your parents insisting that you eat string cheese and animal crackers for lunch your whole life. “God” to them is a lot like the limited, sad God I mentioned earlier. I don’t blame them for not believing in God. But they still have something that functions for them as “God.” We all do.

So what kind of God does an atheist believe in?

Remember, that’s not polite to say. But everybody has some context that guides the “Why” and the meaning of life. Science can tell us lots of facts about the world. But meaning has to come from somewhere else. People have to answer questions like, “What is the purpose of life?” “Why am I here?” “What is my best life?” When they are presented with the findings of Science – I am a big believer in science and reason – something provides the “So what?” There are lots of ways to answer those questions. Some are somewhat helpful, some help you coast aimlessly through life, and some are downright disastrous. Everyone chooses something that defines their context and meaning.

What if they refuse to choose?

They can’t. Saying that life has no meaning, that we are pointless, that everything is random is still a choice just like deciding that Love is the guiding purpose and meaning of existence. At some point you choose. Even those who just go through life following their biological urges, instincts, and desires are choosing with their actions if not their conscious minds. My first hope for you is that you make a conscious, reasoned choice, whatever you decide.

And so you want me to believe in your God.

Will all my heart. Actually I think you already do. I think your mind just has to catch up with your heart. You have a lot of love in your heart. I can see it through your actions. I am confident you have a lot of experience with God.

Okay, so catch my head up. Explain to me how I’ve experienced this God I don’t know how to believe in with my head.

I will, but not all at one time. We’d be here forever. But I can give you a few short things to think about until we have time to talk again.

And I bet that will be soon.

Because we’re on a roll.

Is that what you call it? Fine.

Well, to start, the name “Yahweh” in the Old Testament translates roughly into “That which holds all things in existence.” You do exist, right?

As far as I know.

Me too. And I am grateful for that fact. There is a famous theologian who said, “God is not a being. God is Being.” About sums it up.

God is Being? That’s it?

Imperfect image, remember. One of the oldest, least incorrect ones. But still an image. But, to me, it’s the most basic experience of God. I am. That’s what God told Moses to say who God is, remember? “I am.”

Pretty basic.

But here’s the next thing. The book of Genesis also tells us that God created the world from nothing. That means at some point there was nothing, and there was something. Creation “Ex Nihilo.”

So who created God?

God is not a being, remember. God does not do time. God just is. God is Being.

So you say.

So the bible says. And we have to decide that we’ll believe that.

Why should I?

Because, well, think about the implications of creation “ex nihilo,” out of nothing. At the beginning, God was God. Perfectly cool with being God. He did not need to make some little followers to adore him that he could boss around. God does not need anything. God is just God. So that means that, if creation wasn’t for him, it was for us. Creation is a gift. And then after he created, he pronounced it to be “very good.” We are very good. A gift from God.

So I should just believe that because the bible says it? We know the world wasn’t created like that.

Sure. Genesis is not a scientific document. It’s a theological document. The creation story communicates truth, not scientific fact.

So why should I believe that everything is a gift and my existence is “very good?” Why shouldn’t I believe everything is just random or that life has no meaning?

If everyone has to choose the way they see the world anyway, I want to see it in a way that makes the world more fulfilling and meaningful for me. I want to choose a worldview that is consistent with the stirrings and yearnings of my heart. I love and want to be loved. I have passion. I am grateful when I receive a gift. I am relieved when somebody forgives me and we’re cool again. I experience God in my heart. I want my head to keep up.

Okay…

And I want my actions to be guided by this way of looking at the world. Because I know that my experience of the world is better when I choose to love others and when others choose to love me. God is love. And that sets the agenda for everything. If you let it.

I thought God was Being?

Limited image, remember? The next least incorrect way to think of God is that God is a special kind of love. A love that gives itself for the sake of the beloved. “Self-gift,” if you will. Remember when I said that everything is a gift? That’s God pouring himself out. Emptying himself out for our sake. Everything in the world is oriented to that kind of love. It holds all things in being. We can work with that or we can work against it. Our choice. My job as your father is to convince you that working with it is the best choice.

Or I could choose to see the world some other way.

You could. Many people do. Some people don’t see why they should give themselves away in love. They think that’s a sucker’s bet. There are many people who go through life looking out for “numero uno” and that’s it. It’s just that, I don’t think that’s truly what’s in their hearts. They’re just confused, lost, or hurt. I don’t want to believe anybody is just plain selfish by nature, even when they are habitually selfish. Creation is fundamentally good, right?

That you say.

So which world do you want to live in? The one where people love each other and look out for each other, even if it means sacrificing for one another? Or the world where everyone has to earn their right to live? Where might makes right? Where everyone looks out for only themselves?

You make that second choice sound like a bad thing. Kidding.

Well it’s not my choice. You can live in that world if you wish. Many do. I choose love. Love isn’t magic. It doesn’t make the hurts and sufferings of this world go away. It does not magically shield you from bad things. It just is a way of approaching the world that makes the most out of suffering and hurts. It is a way of life that reaches out and helps others get through the hard times. You live this paradox where, to truly live, you give up your life. To lead, you have to serve. To gain, you have to give everything away.

Again, you’re not making it sound attractive.

Well, let me put it this way. Without God, you would not be here. In this famiy I mean. If mom and I were just looking out for ourselves, if we were not looking for ways to pour out our lives as a gift to others, as God does, do you think we would have adopted you? Every payday we’d have been like, “Woohoo! Let’s go party and buy stuff!” If we didn’t believe in God’s brand of Love, we’d never spend thousands of the dollars we earn on you. We’d keep it for ourselves. We’d be a lot richer right now. But we’d also be miserable and wretched. Because selfishness is not the path to any kind of happiness or fulfillment. To me, living as if the God of Love, who created the world as a gift and judged it to be very good, is the best way to align my life so that my life is fulfilling and has a meaning that transcends my little span of time on earth.

So, it’s time for dinner….

Provided by God, aka Love, in the form of your Mother who used her time after work to do more work so that you could be fed. She could have just plopped down and watched TV, you know. So that stroganoff you’re about..

Stroganoff! Yes!

That Stroganoff you’re about to eat is yummy. Not the healthiest choice, maybe, but a tangible experience of God’s Love. Brought to you by a woman who is devoted to that kind of Love. So that’s why we pray before dinner. And your responsibility is to receive that love, be grateful, and respond by giving yourself as a gift in kind.

You’re hinting that I should offer to clear the table.

That’s a start. Also I want you to think about God as Love. Creation as a gift that is very good. And what kind of world you want to live in. I also want you to know more about who God is. To be cool with the idea that the “superfriend in the sky” does not exist, you need a better idea of who, what, whatever, God is.

But… we don’t have time for that because we’re about to eat…

Stroganoff, yes. But here’s something to think about. God is a relationship. Not a person. A relationship.

Um, okay.

That’s what we mean by the Holy Trinity. But that’s another day. My brain is full and my stomach is empty.

I’d say that it looks like the reverse is true but that would not be very loving of me.

I’ll show you love. Come here and let me smack you.

To be continued. (No, I don’t smack my kid. Very hard. In front of people.)

Remember when we were six and we thought it would be so cool to be able to shave and use the lawnmower just like daddy? You know how that turned out, right? Yeah. Adulthood is like that but on steroids.

Sure, you make your own money and drive your own car and own your own house. But you find yourself doing things like driving your own car across Houston to protest the valuation on your own house so that your escrow sucks up a smaller portion of your own money. If you don’t know what “valuation” and “escrow” mean, believe me you will. No rush.

Don’t get me wrong. Adulthood will be awesome. It will be most awesome in many ways you are not mature enough to appreciate yet. Don’t be in such a rush to be “mature.” If you skip past your teens trying to be “mature” more quickly you’ll actually end up being less mature when you get there. Do your maturing as a teen. It’s way more painful to become mature once you become an adult.

I appreciate all your hard studying and your intellectual curiosity, I really do. But dude: Look around. Pay attention. Enjoy things. Make friends. Those are important too.

And now that I look at you, well… I am still glad you’re a pretty much a nerd but I am damned grateful that you don’t have access to Facebook.

Okay, I gotta go. Someone who claims he’s “me at age 70” is on the other line. Says it’s urgent.

I feel obligated to coach you on some netiquette issues because I don’t want you to end up being “That Guy” online.

Basically, there are four main reasons to use social media.

Share yourself. Let people who are interested know what’s up with you

Share cool stuff you honestly think others will enjoy

Encourage, appreciate, and help others

Facilitate real world relationships

That’s it. Don’t try to change people’s politics. Don’t try to convert them to your religion. Don’t try to impress people with what a great guy you are. That only happens, but only rarely so, through the example of your actions offline, never from what you say online.

Remember that you are conducting yourself in public. Don’t post anything that you wouldn’t want me to read. It may be a free country, but this is not a free family. I, your Father, am to be regarded as “Most Benevolent Dictator and Overlord.” I also moonlight as the secret police.

And, hey, I was a teenager once. I was socially awkward. I said stupid stuff because I desperately wanted attention. I (gasp) used the occasional inappropriate language with my friends because I thought it would make me cool and ingratiate myself to the “in” group of the moment.

The thing is, I didn’t have the internet to capture it all so that everyone could read it. You do, so you have it harder than I did in that way. It’s like you need to be more mature than your developmental age to protect your future self from humiliation at the hands of your younger self. And, lacking that, the police state that I, your Benevolent Dictator and Overlord, have cobbled together will try to help with that. So remember that Big Brother is watching always.

So run out and play, but remember these things…

Emoticons are a poor substitute for non-verbal communication. People could not see your face as you typed that last clever post. Many boisterously enthusiastic things you say can come across as loud and obnoxious. Sarcasm and inside-jokes translate badly across social media and make you look like “That Guy.”

There is nothing you have to say in social media that requires more than one exclamation point. Ever. And, unless your team just won the national championship, or unless there is a medical emergency requiring an ambulance, you never ever post in all caps. Again, don’t be “That Guy.”

I see you participate in several niche groups. Fine. Let your geek flag fly, I say.

But you need to be aware that not everyone who sees what you post cares about what you care about. On general social media sites like Facebook all of your groups and interests are “collapsed” into one list. Sociologists call it “context collapse.” Church friends, geek friends, fanboy niche friends, school friends, family — all of your “contexts” are “collapsed” on Facebook. They all look at what you post. You can’t post just for one context all the time.

So be well-rounded. Don’t post arcane song lyrics or change your profile pic to an obscure anime character and expect everyone to appreciate your sophisticated grasp of some cultural backwater. Save the uber-geeky stuff for the group’s bulletin board and keep your Facebook page kind of generic.

And you do not want to be “That Guy” on Facebook or whatever social site who’s all. “Ooh!! Ooh!! Look at me!!”

In social media you need to remember this guiding rule: Everyone who posts stuff on social media is saying “Hey! Pay attention to me!” in some way. You need to give 10x more attention than you get. Positive attention. Encourage people.

Don’t create your own group and ask people to join you. Instead, join others’ groups and be a model member. Spend most of your time commenting on other people’s stuff. Comment on and encourage everyone else at least 5 times more than you post your own stuff.

Word hard and stay humble. Comment way more than you post. Be a producer, not just a consumer. And, as in real life, listen more than you talk.

I’ve not been a big fan of Archibald MacLeish, but I stumbled across this poem and found it encouraging. A balm for these hectic times.

OUTLOOKNot to be conquered by these headlong days,But to stand free: to keep the mind at broodOn life’s deep meaning, nature’s altitudeOf loveliness, and time’s mysterious ways;At every thought and deed to clear the hazeOut of our eyes, considering only this,What man, what life, what love, what beauty is,This is to live, and win the final praise.Though strifes, ill fortune, and harsh human needBeat down the soul, at moments blind and dumbWith agony; yet, patience–there shall comeMany great voices from life’s outer sea,Hours of strange triumph, and, when few men heed,Murmurs and glimpses of eternity.

For me, poetry is one of those “great voices from life’s outer sea” from which come “murmurs and glimpses of eternity.”

In my men’s bible study today we were reading from Exodus 17 where Aaron and Hur had to help Moses hold up his arms so that the Israelites could fend off an attack from the Amalekites (yes, I had to look that up). I’ve read this reading dozens of times before and usually associated it with the “persistence in prayer” lesson of that particular week in the liturgical calendar.

But today it hit me harder. It’s probably where I am right now, but I was filled with compassion for Moses. Here is this great leader. He is in charge, poor guy, with the very lives of people depending on him and his strength. Then he’s in this situation where the very lives of people seem to depend on him holding up his arms. When he drops his arms, in the story, his people, his charges who depend on him, lose their lives.

It’s a hell of a thing to realize that your personal weakness – your inability to hold up your own damned arms — puts others in harm’s way. I’m not too proud to accept help when I am faced with an extraordinary task or problem, or if I know that what’s needed is not in my set of God-given gifts. But having someone to come help you do something so ordinary as holding up your own arms so that the people you are supposed to be taking care of aren’t hurt, that’s pretty humiliating.

So translate this story to the life of a parent, a spouse, etc. Some daily discipline, something personal, something that anybody could and should do on a daily basis, if neglected out of weakness, can put the people you have vowed to love and protect in harm’s way. This is one of the main motivators for starting a moderately successful diet this year — I realized that my bad food choices put my family in harm’s way. And I had to ask for help to hold up my damn arms. Turns out that’s not the only personal discipline area where my weakness puts my charges in harms way. So I need to be held up in many ways.

So God, not one to let me wallow in self-pity for too long, reminded me of this old poem, which I now have printed out and posted front and center.

A CONFEDERATE SOLDIER’S PRAYER Author Unknown, (Attributed to a battle weary C.S.A soldier near the end of the war)

I asked God for strength, that I might achieve; I was made weak, that I might learn humbly to obey. I asked for health, that I might do greater things; I was given infirmity, that I might do better things. I asked for riches, that I might be happy; I was given poverty, that I might be wise. I asked for power, that I might have the praise of men; I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God. I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life; I was given life, that I might enjoy all things. I got nothing that I asked for, but everything I hoped for. Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered. I am among all men most richly blessed.